Nothing like updating my blog on a Sunday afternoon at Starbucks in the middle of a long weekend. (Thanks Linda for the gift card!!!) Did I mention I'm leaving for a beach retreat tomorrow? Life is good.
I didn't have much to do this weekend for the first time in a while. My grad school applications and financial aid applications are finished so now I just wait for the decisions. I was at school a while yesterday and got my lesson plans done. I still have some more school stuff to do, but I'm taking the day off today. I'll miss two days of school this week because I'm helping to write summer camp curriculum and we have a writer's retreat at a condo in New Jersey. It's two blocks from the beach, but I'm sure I'll head down to the beach at all since it's so cold!
I've been fortunate to have opportunities to miss school to do some neat things. I've never taken a sick day or a personal day, but I've gotten to go recruiting each year and attend some different trainings and workshops. I'm thankful for the people who've stepped up to cover my class. We don't really have subs, so a lot of times the people who cover are interns or directors who already have a full day's schedule. I'm hoping my class will be better behaved this year when I'm out, but I'm not counting on it. I would not want to be a sub in that class!
In other news, I made some New Year's resolutions, and there are even a few I haven't broken yet! One is to read every day which I've been doing. I really like to read, but last year I hardly read at all. After I haven't been reading, it's always hard for me to get back into reading regularly. Thankfully I got into a fluff Nicholas Sparks novel over Christmas break and now I'm back into the habit of reading, so hopefully I'll read some good quality stuff soon!
Speaking of reading, I bought some new education books on Amazon yesterday. I'm kind of an education book junkie. I probably shouldn't have bought any considering I still have a few I haven't read yet. But we had a teacher inservice day on Friday and I blame that. In the morning we did normal stuff like reviewing multiple intelligences. (My top three were linguistic, musical, and logical/mathematical according to the test we took, and apparently that's a strange combination. Our principal kept saying how unique and odd it was, and then it made me feel self-conscious. I'm not a big fan of multiple intelligences in the first place.) Then we talked about some best practices and ordered salads from Lucy's for lunch (Chef Paul has inspired us to be healthy). After lunch we looked at our standardized test scores from last year. They're bad. I've been frustrated by the fact that our school is basically not effective and no one else (maybe every once and a while someone agrees with me) seems to realize this or care enough to change it. Friday for the first time all the teachers were on the same page saying yes, what we're doing is not working. We need to change it. Catherine gave us an inspirational pep talk, and even I with my overly negative attitude about school was inspired. So I went home and bought education books. I'm really thankful the teachers were able to have that kind of honest discussion without it turning ugly, and now the next step is coming up with a plan to do something! I hope we get to that point!
One more New Year's resolution I've been keeping is exercising more. Yes, I go to Planet Fitness fairly often, but I usually just hang out on the elliptical for about 30 minutes while I watch Oprah, which is not a very impressive workout. So I bought the 30 Day Shred DVD with Jillian Michaels from Amazon. It's hard! But Jillian Michaels is not too irritating to watch which is a good quality in a workout video. And it only takes 20 minutes...but you're not allowed to rest at all. Hopefully I'll be able to do it while I'm traveling the next couple weeks. I've got some motivation to get in shape. I'm in a wedding in May and right now I'm kind of between sizes for the bridesmaid dress. No, looking better in the dress is not my primary motivation. I figure if I get the smaller size, I won't have to get it altered, which means saving lots of money. Saving money=very motivational for me. So time to leave Starbucks and go get shredded! (Who came up with that term anyway? Was it Jillian? It's kind of violent.)
I didn't have much to do this weekend for the first time in a while. My grad school applications and financial aid applications are finished so now I just wait for the decisions. I was at school a while yesterday and got my lesson plans done. I still have some more school stuff to do, but I'm taking the day off today. I'll miss two days of school this week because I'm helping to write summer camp curriculum and we have a writer's retreat at a condo in New Jersey. It's two blocks from the beach, but I'm sure I'll head down to the beach at all since it's so cold!
I've been fortunate to have opportunities to miss school to do some neat things. I've never taken a sick day or a personal day, but I've gotten to go recruiting each year and attend some different trainings and workshops. I'm thankful for the people who've stepped up to cover my class. We don't really have subs, so a lot of times the people who cover are interns or directors who already have a full day's schedule. I'm hoping my class will be better behaved this year when I'm out, but I'm not counting on it. I would not want to be a sub in that class!
In other news, I made some New Year's resolutions, and there are even a few I haven't broken yet! One is to read every day which I've been doing. I really like to read, but last year I hardly read at all. After I haven't been reading, it's always hard for me to get back into reading regularly. Thankfully I got into a fluff Nicholas Sparks novel over Christmas break and now I'm back into the habit of reading, so hopefully I'll read some good quality stuff soon!
Speaking of reading, I bought some new education books on Amazon yesterday. I'm kind of an education book junkie. I probably shouldn't have bought any considering I still have a few I haven't read yet. But we had a teacher inservice day on Friday and I blame that. In the morning we did normal stuff like reviewing multiple intelligences. (My top three were linguistic, musical, and logical/mathematical according to the test we took, and apparently that's a strange combination. Our principal kept saying how unique and odd it was, and then it made me feel self-conscious. I'm not a big fan of multiple intelligences in the first place.) Then we talked about some best practices and ordered salads from Lucy's for lunch (Chef Paul has inspired us to be healthy). After lunch we looked at our standardized test scores from last year. They're bad. I've been frustrated by the fact that our school is basically not effective and no one else (maybe every once and a while someone agrees with me) seems to realize this or care enough to change it. Friday for the first time all the teachers were on the same page saying yes, what we're doing is not working. We need to change it. Catherine gave us an inspirational pep talk, and even I with my overly negative attitude about school was inspired. So I went home and bought education books. I'm really thankful the teachers were able to have that kind of honest discussion without it turning ugly, and now the next step is coming up with a plan to do something! I hope we get to that point!
One more New Year's resolution I've been keeping is exercising more. Yes, I go to Planet Fitness fairly often, but I usually just hang out on the elliptical for about 30 minutes while I watch Oprah, which is not a very impressive workout. So I bought the 30 Day Shred DVD with Jillian Michaels from Amazon. It's hard! But Jillian Michaels is not too irritating to watch which is a good quality in a workout video. And it only takes 20 minutes...but you're not allowed to rest at all. Hopefully I'll be able to do it while I'm traveling the next couple weeks. I've got some motivation to get in shape. I'm in a wedding in May and right now I'm kind of between sizes for the bridesmaid dress. No, looking better in the dress is not my primary motivation. I figure if I get the smaller size, I won't have to get it altered, which means saving lots of money. Saving money=very motivational for me. So time to leave Starbucks and go get shredded! (Who came up with that term anyway? Was it Jillian? It's kind of violent.)
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